


All Scars Were Once Open Wounds

by yaycoffee



Series: LWS Trope Bingo [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Scars, Unresolved Sexual Tension, injured on a case, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaycoffee/pseuds/yaycoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets injured on a case, and John helps to patch up the new wound.  It’s the old ones that will be tricky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Scars Were Once Open Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to youngdarling for looking this over and helping me make it better!
> 
> This is written for the letswritesherlock Trope Bingo Challenge. (Card 1, Prompt: sick!fic)
> 
> I am organizing all the stories I write for the LWS Challenge into a series. The stories will be one-off pieces with unconnected timelines and plot lines.
> 
> The absolutely lovely [Oxycontin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Oxycontin/pseuds/Oxycontin) has translated this story into Chinese! You can find the translation [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2083647).

Lestrade is just behind him as John follows the sound of Sherlock’s footsteps, pounding wetly down a darkened alley. Less than half an hour ago, after two days of near-solid investigation, they’d finally tracked down their murderer to a derelict flat above a butcher’s shop in Hackney. But it was never going to be _that_ easy. Knife in hand, the man lashed out immediately, nearly catching Lestrade in the face. John had pulled Sherlock back, which gave him just enough time to jump from the window and shimmy down the fire escape. Sherlock sprang after him, leaving John and Lestrade working to simply keep up.

“Former gymnast,” Sherlock had said at one point in the investigation, and true enough. Even Sherlock had struggled a bit to vault fences and cars fast enough to keep up, and since John had only just got back in the chasing-dangerous-men-down-alleyways business when Sherlock returned a couple months ago, he was still well out of practise.

But Sherlock, even now, knows the ins-and-outs of London better than Google, and he’s managed to chase the man into a dead-end. Even over the rushing of blood in his ears and the pounding of his and Lestrade’s footsteps, John hears the other footsteps stop, the sounds of a struggle. He just has to get there faster.

He turns the corner just in time to watch Sherlock duck a blow, but as he’s crouched down, the murderer nimbly tumbles backwards to avoid a hit. John sees the flash of metal, and he charges forward, but not quickly enough—the blade catches Sherlock at the side before John can get there. With a rush, he disarms him with a swift kick and slams the man into the pavement, knee on his back, hands pinning his wrists.

“Jesus! Sherlock!” John breathes, lungs burning, waiting for Lestrade to get there with the cuffs.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth. He’s hunched over, holding a hand to his abdomen, just above his waist.

Lestrade catches up then, shouting into his phone for the rest of his team, and he pulls the man from his oily puddle and hauls him away.

“I’ve got to get Sherlock to A&E,” he tells Lestrade. “We can be by sometime tomorrow if you need statements.” Lestrade nods and tells them to go.

“I don’t need to go to hospital,” Sherlock grinds out. “It’s just a scratch; I’ve had worse. I’ll take care of it at home,” but he’s struggling to stand upright, clutching tightly to his middle.

“Let me see,” John says, stepping in closer to get a better look. Sherlock rolls his eyes but complies, pulling his shirttails from his trousers and lifting the hem enough for John to see the wound. It’s started drizzling, and John has to blink the wet from his eyes. The cut is maybe three inches wide, not too deep, not bleeding too badly, but, “You need stitches,” he tells Sherlock.

“I’ve got a kit at home. Antibiotics, too. I really don’t fancy waiting four hours at hospital for something that will take me half an hour to tend to on my own. At home.”

John sighs, pulling the scarf from his own neck. He presses it to Sherlock’s wound and moves Sherlock’s hand, pressing it over top, in a silent instruction for him to hold it in place. Some things never change. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “All right. Fine, but—like _hell_ I’m letting you do it on your own. I’ll do it.”

“Unnecessary,” Sherlock says, but the hand he tries to wave in dismissal comes away dark with blood, and Sherlock has to return it to his side quickly.

“Perhaps. But—I’m the doctor here.”

Even though the blood was well contained, John has to pay the cabbie extra to even take them. He phones Mary on the way, letting her know that he’ll be late getting in. At Baker Street, he has to help Sherlock up the steps to the flat.

Just inside the door, they remove their coats, and John points first to Sherlock and then in the direction of the kitchen. “You, kitchen. Sit.” He switches on the light and asks, “Where’s the kit?”

“Under the bathroom sink,” Sherlock says, sinking slowly, carefully, into the chair. John leaves him to fetch the kit, turning on lights along the way. He finds the kit easily, noting appreciatively that it rivals his medical one at home.

In the kitchen, Sherlock has removed his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. His legs are stretched out in front of him, and he’s leaning at an awkward angle to try and keep his body as straight as he can. John knows Sherlock would be more comfortable on the sofa, but he needs the kitchen light in order to see properly.

“Right,” John says. Moving quickly, he clears off the contents of the table, shifting papers, a microscope, a box of slides, and apparently, a container of fingernails, to the worktop and wipes the table with isopropyl alcohol. He lays out the supplies he needs and then crosses to the sink to scrub his hands. He snaps on a pair of gloves and says, “Okay. Let me see.”

Sherlock lifts the hem of his shirt again. He’s still got John’s scarf over the wound, and he winces a little when John pulls it away. “The bleeding’s mostly stopped. That’s good,” he says. Sherlock’s hum sounds more like a grunt. “Your shirt,” he says, needing more access to the area than what he’s got.

Oddly, Sherlock hesitates. John raises his eyebrows. Sherlock has never been remotely bashful before; this is not the first time he’s had to patch him up after a case. Sherlock swallows, and John can see his entire body stiffen even further. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says, at a loss for what could have Sherlock behaving this way.

Sherlock sighs, and it looks like it hurts, but his fingers move to his buttons, starting with the ones at his cuffs. He moves to the ones in front, going slowly, still stalling, but eventually he shrugs the thing off his shoulders and tosses it in the direction of the fridge. It lands in a shredded, bloodied heap on the floor. John clears his throat. Time to get to work.

He presses against the sides of the cut a little to see what he’s dealing with, and then he begins to clean it, fingers gentle, pulling back every time Sherlock sucks air in through his teeth. He doesn’t bother with _sorry_ —some things are just going to hurt.

It doesn’t take much time to get the stitches in and to get the wound dressed, and before long, John is back over to the sink, binning his gloves and washing his hands again.

“You all right?” he asks as he turns around.

“Fine,” Sherlock says, and he’s standing, turning toward the door that leads to the corridor—to his bedroom. And, that’s when John sees. He feels the breath leave his lungs.

“Stop,” John says.

“I said I’m _fine,_ John,” Sherlock says, but his head sinks low, and he braces himself with a hand on the doorjamb. It makes it even easier for John to see—to see what Sherlock had been so nervous about.

There are scars, dozens of them, marring the pale expanse of Sherlock’s back. John had seen Sherlock’s bare skin—more of it than any flatmate should ever have any right to—in his time living with Sherlock here before, Sherlock who routinely walked around in a sheet or a towel or pajama bottoms or pants or nothing at all. John had seen him grime-and-sweat covered from diving in skips, wet from the shower, gross from days without a bath, but never—not since Afghanistan—had he seen scars like these.

His feet move for him, and he crosses to where Sherlock is, and then his hand reaches out, running flat over the column of his spine. Sherlock’s muscles twitch and flutter under his touch, and John can’t help but bring his other hand out too, stilling him at his flank. “What?” he says, but it’s only a breath really—not even a whisper.

“John,” Sherlock says, and it sounds like perhaps it was meant to be a warning, but it’s resigned—desperately sad. “Please. I don’t...” He clears his throat, and it’s emotional, more emotional than John is accustomed to from him.

John doesn’t let him finish the thought. He has to know. He runs a finger over a well-healed mark high on his left shoulder blade. Sherlock doesn’t pull away. “What is all this, Sherlock?” he says, and he hears the hitch in his own voice now.

Sherlock sighs again. His head is shaking slowly. “You weren’t. I never wanted…” His words trail away as John’s fingers find more, these ones lower, close to his spine—a series of burns (cigarettes?), five in total, like giant ants in a row. When his fingers are done with them, he uses his thumb. Sherlock’s skin is warm, warmer than it was for the stitches, but maybe that’s because the gloves are gone. There is one raised high near his other shoulder. It’s curved around the top like the link in a chain.

“Sherlock,” John says, throat full of gravel. He tries to swallow around it, but it doesn’t work. He coughs. “ _What is this_?” he repeats.

Sherlock turns around then, looming over him, and John looks up with eyes blazing, expecting a challenge, anything but the unfamiliar gaze in front of him—defeated, broken. Without a word, Sherlock steps around him. He turns the kitchen chair to the side and sits down sideways, leaving his back exposed to the room. It’s an invitation.

Clearing his throat, John follows suit, dragging the other chair behind, close enough that he has to spread his knees to accommodate the space of Sherlock’s body in front of him.

Sherlock takes another breath, hitching a bit and stretching to accommodate his new stitches. It’s maybe a full minute of silence and quiet breaths and being close enough to share heat without touching at all, but eventually Sherlock speaks. “It wasn’t a _game_ ,” he says.

“What?” John doesn’t understand. “I don’t want riddles, Sherlock. I want you to tell me.”

“I _am_ telling you,” he says, now sounding a bit irritated, a bit more normal. It’s a small comfort. “You called it ‘playing hide-and-seek.’ I wasn’t.” He falls quiet again, and John’s fingers twitch; he wants to touch. He traces the line of a nearly perfect three-inch circle behind Sherlock’s left rib cage (drill bit?). This one is raised and red, shiny smooth at the highest points of the scar. John’s fingers trace the line of it and then the ridge before pressing into the centre, where it is just skin.

“So, what then?” John asks, and he’s trying for stern, but it comes out like a plea.

Sherlock sniffs. “You asked me me why—that first night.” There is another pause, and John lets it be what it is, waiting for Sherlock to continue. He does. “But, Mary was there, and I decided—”

“What, Sherlock?”

“It was best that you didn’t know. Hard enough. I’d already caused you enough pain and ruined everything so spectacularly. You were happy—not with me at that minute, certainly, but—happy. And—I’d _ruined_ …”

“ _What_ , Sherlock?” John says again.

“I came back too late, wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t _clever_ enough.” His breath hitches. John touches. Silvery lines and red ones and dark ones that now look like birthmarks but aren’t. “Two years,” Sherlock says. “I’d got captured—twice on purpose—the sadistic are more free with their information when they think they’ve got the upper hand. And once— _not_ on purpose. If it weren’t for Mycroft—it would have been…” He shakes his head.

John’s hands are nearly at his waist, stroking the skin there, and he realises he’s just touching to touch now. He doesn’t pull back. “Why, then?” John asks. “You said it wasn’t a game.”

“No,” Sherlock says. John hears him swallow. “It was—it was you.” Silence falls again, and though John would really, really like further explanation—right fucking _now_ —he waits.   “Moriarty needed stopping. But he could blow up the entire world, and it wouldn’t have mattered as much… He was having you followed—snipers. And Mrs Hudson and Lestrade.”

“You’ve told me this. Mycroft took care of it.”

“No,” Sherlock says. “Until his entire network was gone—you had to think that… I had to _stay_ dead, don’t you see? And I—I would rather you lived, you lived and moved on. I never intended to return. You were meant to be happy, meant to live, and I—was meant to die.”

John breathes out long and slow, letting his head drop to the middle of Sherlock’s back. He rocks his forehead there, at a complete loss of words. His hands move up, sliding over muscle and raised flesh, inverted flesh, bone and tendon, a million different textures.

Sherlock’s left hand finds his, covering it, moving it slowly to cover his heart. Warm skin, soft hair, strong beat under his fingers. “He always meant to burn the heart out of me,” Sherlock says. John feels more than hears the rueful non-chuckle that follows. “He did.”

John shifts, his nose brushing Sherlock’s back, lips finding a raised scar, and his entire body thrums with the answering shudder beneath it all. “I’m still here, Sherlock.”

From the living room, John’s phone pings with a text message. They both know who it’s from.

“No,” Sherlock says, standing, wincing, stepping away. “You’re not.”

**~End~**


End file.
